My recollection of labor: Jr’s Birth

June 25, 2016

All of this started on June 25, 2016, @ 11:28pm. How do I remember exactly? Well, I woke up in pain. Body numbing cramps, and no matter how I was curled in a bundle, I could not ease the pain my body was going through. I remember thinking I was on the verge of some serious diarrhea or my period was coming. Foolish it was to think the latter when I had not seen it since the nine months.

Had I not been in shock of the pain I would have deduced I was in labor and was about to pop so to speak.

I moved from the bed to the floor in hopes of some comfort on the cool floor, that it would ease the cramping of my abdomen. Nothing worked. I reached for my phone texted my sister to inform her of the pain I was to undergo. Being a certified nurse and a mother once over, I hoped she would provide discrete insight into the matter. But that was not, so she informed me that not only was I in labor she had spread the word throughout the family I was having a baby.

You would not believe the embarrassment which has crossed over me; I was in too much pain to argue. That this was the reason I did not want to share the good news with everyone. Yes, I was ashamed I had hoped my life would have gone differently, including you into the picture of my failure of accomplishments was making me feel worse. However, I made a promise to you as a zygote to not expel you from my body and to give you a fighting chance at a better life.

Something for me which was not in supply at the moment.

At the hospital﻿﻿

Once I arrived at the Emory Hospital presiding residence of my OB Gyn, I calculated the many ways in which you would enter this world. Natural birth was not an option.

Not because I did not want to have he that way my body, heart, and mind refused to do it that way. Later I would learn that he too was refusing to come out in the 12 hours of labor I had to endure I only dilated 4 cms.

I had to come to terms with the family that night and confess that I was hiding you, that I am okay and give a list of reasons as to why I thought I could not tell them. My father’s wife at the top of the list looking down at me disapprovingly.

I just was not ready to hear what others had to say for it would come as sure as day.

“This is how to be a good mother? Do not do that do this. This is how I have done it and how those before me have done so as well.” I did not need someone to tell me how I was to raise my son. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see you as yet.uuoo uy o tahhhhhhjhth nnr ranare﻿ th otuyth th ﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

On June 26, 2016.

I welcomed home the apple of my eye not only to a physical place but also to the gate of my heart. This being my first child I would later learn how long it took for me to fall in love with him like a mother should.

I spent 12 hours in labor to bring forth a tiny being of 4.45lbs. Small compared to the 9lbs my friend recently popped out. Surely he had future complications.

As I laid in the hospital’s bed struggling to recover from being cut open in the emergency C-section performed to save my son’s life. I laid there wondering how soon would I be able to see him and hold him in my arms. I was yet to tell my family I had gotten pregnant and had the baby.

There needed to be a proof of my latest statement it is a boy.

Proof I did not have at the moment, I struggled to stand and as soon as I could; Struggling to walk from my bedroom to the NICU to set my eyes on my bundle of joy. I did not know what to make; I did not know which of the babies in there was mine. Understand I have only seen him once in a very drugged state.

I asked the nurse on duty to point me toward my child; She looked on the tag on my hand and walked me to the child with the matching tag. To this day, I am not even sure if the one I went home with was really my child. That added to myself doubt did not help the bonding process at all.

Then I saw him:

Yes I had a tube in my mouth to prevet me from coughing on my vomit.

I wanted to know what was wrong with him. Why could I not take him back to the room with me? Why was he wired up? And heated?

I later learned that my once thought premature baby was old and should have been out of me almost a week earlier. That was their explanation of his skin stripping. The light was there to cure the onset of jaundice. He was being nourished by the bottle formula as I am yet to produce milk and the IVF is there to do the same keep him hydrated. Until he is of suitable weight.

I did not want to hear this I was ready to have him in my arms and to tend to him. Watching over him like a hawk.

There was no amount of books in the world to prepare me for what I went through.